Thursday, January 17, 2013

Michelangelo - Giant Among Giants

Michelangelo For Me

The Giant Among Giants -- 1475-1564

That's a self-portrait on our left of Signor Buonarotti -- Signor
Michelangelo Buronarotti -- a detail from his great monumental sculpture The
Florentine Pieta. Michelangelo portrayed himself as Nicodemus in the act of
lowering Christ from the cross, this Deposition begun before the year 1550. In
that same year, the French traveler Blaise de Vigenere saw the artist at work
and wrote: "He had passed his sixtieth year, and although he was not very
strong, yet in a quarter of an hour he caused more splinters to fall from a very
heavy block of marble than three young masons in twice or thrice the time. No
one can believe it who has not seen it with his own eyes. And he attacked the
work with such energy and fire that I thought it would fly into pieces. With one
blow he brought down fragments three or four fingers in breadth, and so exactly
at the point marked, that if only a tiny piece of marble more had fallen, he
would have been in danger of ruining the whole work." It is a quotation by a
contemporary which for me perhaps best expresses the passion I see behind all of
Michelangelo's work.
Though I've stood and studied, on many occasions, all of Michelangelo's four
Pietas -- the most famous one, and most known and loved by the public, at
St Peter's Basilica, Rome, executed when he was 24 years old; the Florentine
Pieta now at the Museo del Duomo, Forence; the Palestrina
Pieta, after 1555, in the Accademia di Belli Arti, Florence; and the
Pieta Rondanini, 1555-1564, at Milan's Castello Sforza -- my
favorite has always been the Florentine Pieta.
I first saw the Florentine Pieta in 1950 while living as a graduate
student in Firenze. The monthly subsistence check from the Veterans
Administration (under the GI Bill of Rights for World War II vets) did not go
very far, and during that time of La Miseria in Italy, most buildings,
including the impoverished pensione where I lived, were without heat. When not
at school, I did what the Italians did to keep warm -- went into the streets,
walked the city, lingered in sunny piazzas.Most days, on return from these
long hikes, I stopped at the Duomo, that great Cathedral of Santa
Maria del Fiore, only two short blocks from my room in Via Ginori. I could
rest, delay return to the room (even colder than the Cathedral), and of course,
look again on the great treasures of art within that architectural marvel. For
me, the finest treasure was Michelangelo's Deposition or Pieta, at that
time standing in a dark side chapel. Visitors could not enter the chapel, the
light was very poor, but even restricted viewing revealed the strength and
sorrow of the masterful composition. Denied access to the chapel, I could not
study the marble from the side or back, but came to know every line, contour,
expression of its front. Some days, by tricks of light entering the chapel or
the reflection of candles, I detected golden rays moving over its surface. On
rare occasions, these rays would touch the face of the dead Christ, or of
Nicodemus lowering Him from the cross. Eventually, daily visits to the
Pieta became something I had to do -- even when Spring arrived and the
weather turned warm. If anything kept me from it, the day was somehow not
complete.
Firenze, of course, provided the finest opportunity for familiarity with
other Michelangelo works. The Accademia housed the great David and the
unfinished Prisoners (sometimes referred to as Slaves) struggling to free
themselves from the marble. In the same hall with the Prisoners was the
Palestrina Pieta, compelling, infinitely sad. During breaks from classes,
I could go to the Rotunda, look again on these marvels. Five minutes from my
pensione was the Medici Chapel with its magnificent sculptures of Lorenzo and
Giuliano de Medici, the Medicean Madonna and the great tomb groupings of Day and
Night, Dawn and Evening. My treks about the city took me to the Bargello,
where several of Michelangelo's youthful works -- the Faun's Mask, a smaller and
softer David, the imposing Head of Brutus, the bas-relief tondo Madonna
with Book, and a drunken Bacchus -- display the genius which Lorenzo de Medici
recognized while the artist was still a teenager. And there was Casa
Buonarotti, where Michelangelo once lived, and which still today shelters
his reliefs The Battle of the Centaurs and the Madonna on the Steps. At the
Uffizi Gallery, one could study the only existing easel painting ever finished
by the master, his Holy Family.
Limited funds prohibited extensive travel during my year of graduate study in
Firenze, and I saw little of Italy other than the city and, occasionally, nearby
Tuscan towns. But subsequent visits to Italy have always led me, intentionally
or not, to more works of Michelangelo. Once in Bologna, visiting a friend at the
monastery of San Domenico, I was surprised to find in the chapel, statues of
Proculus and Petronius, and the Kneeling Angel with a Candlestick, previously
known only through reproductions in art books. I also "happened across" the four
statues of the Piccolomini altar, attributed to Michelangelo and assistants, in
the Siena Cathedral. At Castello Sforza in Milan, I saw the Rondanini
Pieta, unfinished, abstract, tortuous, a testament to the fact that he was
working on it in the days before his death during his 89th year. In Rome, I
sought out the Risten Christ in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva -- poorly
stationed and lit, but the strong and expressive face of the Savior was
luminescent in the darkness. And in Rome, of course, one goes again and again to
the Vatican, and -- despite the crowds -- always stops before that first and
most acclaimed, most loved of the four Pietas. I've seen strong men weep
in its presence.The Sistine frescoes today -- after the long-term meticulous
cleaning, freed from centuries of dirt and grime -- are newly glowing glories,
even to those of us who've gazed on them countless times over half a century.
For me, more than ever, Michelangelo's figures and forms on ceiling and
altarpiece, though masterfully painted, are sculptural, endorsing his lifelong
insistence that he was not a painter but a sculptor.In Paris, I went to the
Louvre to see as much as possible, in limited time, the famous masterpieces of
that renowned museum. But when I stumbled into the gallery containing
Michelangelo's The Dying Captive, I found it difficult to move on.But I
haven't seen it all yet, and particularly not one of the greatest works, the
Moses. On three different occasions on three different visits to Rome, I went to
the church of San Pietro in Vincoli determined to finally see this
celebrated marble. Each time, the church was closed. Photo reproductions
convince me it's a "must," I can't really claim knowledge of Michelangelo
without studying this monumental, significant work. If rationale is needed for
still another return to the Eternal City, that's one for me.
My love for the works of Michelangelo -- and of the man, because his works
are the man -- could be threatening to my appreciation of other painters and
sculptors, other genres of art. Could be, but isn't, as I continue to stand in
awe beore so much which other masters have given us. Perhaps another lesson from
Michelangelo, who's taught me so much. Afterall, wasn't he the first to exhalt
the work of Ghiberti, to name that artist's superb doors of the Baptistery in
Florence "The Gates of Paradise." Even so, enamored of all that's good in art, I
esteem Michelangelo above all others. My Giant of Giants.
Decades after I'd completed graduate work (sometime in the Seventies, I
think), I read that the Forentine Pieta had been moved from Santa
Maria del Fiore in Firenze to the Museo del Duomo, just behind the
cathedral, in the shadow of the great dome. Remembering my visits to the
cathedral to visit the sculpture, remembering mystical moments before it, I was
disappointed to learn of the move. But I've seen it many times in subsequent
years, and the new location is excellent. The Pieta stands on a spacious
staircase landing, brightly illuminated with natural light from an adjacent
window, imposing and arresting as you first view it from the bottom of the
staircase. And what a thrill to ascend the staircase, slowly approach that
wonder in marble. The landing is large enough to allow one to circle the
sculpture, view it closely from front, sides and back, observe the rough chisel
marks, that characteristic conclusion so often seen in his late work, the
insistence that once the form was as he wanted it, Michelangelo felt no need to
"finish," "polish" the work. And the dim golden glow I'd once observed in the
dark cathedral now floods the entire sculpture, as the stone itself is of that
hue.Italians have told me
that Michelangelo carved this Pieta for his sacophagus. True or not, his
portrait in the figure of Nicodemus shows not only tender compassion for the
dead Christ but an intense yearning for oneness with God. I can't stand before
it without contemplating the words spoken by Michelangelo on his deathbed: "I
regret that I have not done enough for the salvation of my soul and that I am
dying just as I am beginning to learn the alphabet of my profession."